Above are links to two websites I have found which would be a competitor for Lauren.

The first website I looked at was Flour Pot Bakery, based in Brighton that deliver to wholesales and also have their own bakeries/cafes. Their website was easy to navigate around and when scrolling down flowed well. All the information about this business was easily accessible and images of their products where of high quality which is important for users to see what their bakery goods look like. Colours used were dark but worked well as they were contrasted with lighter colours. The type of navigation used is something I would typically like to use when creating Lauren’s website as the nav bar is bold and clear and users can get to all pages as soon as they enter the page, however for easier navigation I am planning on having a fixed nav bar so that users are able to get to other pages without having to scroll all the way back to the top or by having to click an arrow which would make the page navigate back to the top. The layout of this site was not cluttered with too much text, images or videos and showed enough information for users to understand what the business does and who they are. My favourite thing about this site that they had a clear theme and that all the colours blended well throughout the whole website and so made the websites content flow. One thing I wasn’t so keen about is the navigation bar wasn’t fixed so navigating around the site was harder than it should have.

The second site I looked at was Truffles Bakery who are based in Sussex, they have quite a few bakerys and cater for many businesses. Truffles has a similar layout to Flour Pot as they also have a header which is a slideshow that presents images of their products from their bakery. I think this is an attractive header that I should look to feature on Lauren’s website, as by having a bold image as a header would intrigue customers as they will see her lovely products that will interest them in looking further into the website and Lauren’s business. Truffle’s nav bar is fixed and so navigating around the website was easy, as Truffle’s business is bigger they feature more pictures and information than Flour Pot. Truffle’s have less text on their home page than Flour Pot but feature more images which I think is more aesthetically pleasing for users as they can see straight away the businesses products and are more likely to be attracted to images than text. My favourite thing about Truffles bakery is their clear bold pictures as it is something users are attracted to straight away and know if their service is suitable for their needs. This is something I would like to have featured on Lauren’s website as I think it is important for her users to see her products clearly so that users would look further into her website as they would be interested in seeing more. One thing I disliked about Truffles Bakery is that the home page is a bit too cluttered with images. Although the images show off their products and services I prefer more white space as if users are greeted with too much information they may not be able to clearly see other information which could be hidden.

From looking at Lauren’s competitors it has enabled me to gather ideas of how her website should ideally look like and how in some aspects it shouldn’t. By having this information I can now confidently started designing Lauren’s website.